Galaxy S II

After a little bit of a false start several days ago, it looks like the much-anticipated Android 4.0.3 update is rolling out for the AT&T flavor of the Samsung Galaxy S II. The update was available briefly a few days ago via the Samsung Kies update software, but Samsung pulled the file saying it was merely a "test."

Users from XDA have now successfully installed the update through Kies on stock devices.

A few days ago, T-Mobile's version of the Samsung Galaxy S II, codenamed "Hercules," received a hearty scoop of Ice Cream Sandwich. Today, the fun continues for owners of the device, as Team Douche just made available official CM9 nightlies.

Definition: A "nightly" is a cutting-edge release that is built on a daily basis, usually at night after a full day's worth of new code has been committed.

It could oftentimes be unstable and not properly tested, lacking any changelogs, but eventually evolving into alphas, betas, release candidates, and finally stable releases.

We already knew that today was the big day for T-Mobile's Galaxy S II to receive Ice Cream Sandwich. T-Mobile has just let on that the rollout will begin tonight at 11pm EST. The update will be done via Kies, so unfortunately the update won't be showing up over the air. Hope you've got a microUSB cable handy.

The update is just slightly behind the 4.0.4 that other devices have been receiving, but users probably won't be complaining too much.

T-Mobile just updated its support page for the Samsung Galaxy S II with details of an OTA update that should be rolling out right now. Before you get your hopes up, though, there's some bad news: it's not ICS. It's just an incremental Gingerbread update that brings a handful of enhancements and improvements:

Android version 2.3.6 / Software version T989UVLDE

Version

Android version 2.3.6 / Software version T989UVLDE

Over-The-Air Update (32.3 MB)

Approved 5/21/12

Improvements:

Random reboot/power off fixed

Device stability improvements

Qualcomm chip patch

Google Security fixes

Prerequisites

Android version 2.3.6 / Software version T989UVKL1 update

At least 50% battery life

The update should be available right now and will complete its rollout on June 22.

Samsung Canada has finished porting Ice Cream Sandwich to a whole bunch of devices, which in Samsung press release parlance means they are "eligible" for an upgrade. Does that mean you can hit that "update" button today and start downloading ICS? Well, that's complicated.

First though, the list of devices:

GALAXY S II

GALAXY S II LTE

GALAXY S II LTE HD

GALAXY S II X

GALAXY Note

GALAXY Tab 7.0

GALAXY Tab 7.0 Plus

GALAXY Tab 8.9

GALAXY Tab 10.1

Now, for the caveats: Sammy says "The upgrade will be available today on select devices in Canada and will continue rolling out to devices and carriers throughout the quarter." and "The availability of the software upgrade and specific models upgradable to Android 4.0 will vary by market and wireless carriers' requirements.

Here's a bit of good news for all of you who have an unlocked (global) Samsung Galaxy S II here in the U.S.: Ice Cream Sandwich is being pushed to your device right now. This makes the global GSII the first of the GSII family to officially get Ice Cream Sandwich in the U.S., as none of the three American carriers that offer the phone have begun sending the update yet.

The CyanogenMod team has done it again, bringing their CM9 build for AT&T's variant of the Samsung Galaxy SII to nightly status, and releasing the build to the CyanogenMod mirror network just yesterday.

The build actually released just before news that a seemingly official (and fully TouchWiz-ed) build of ICS had leaked for AT&T's SII, so SII owners have a couple of great options to satisfy their Ice Cream Sandwich cravings.

This morning, RootzWiki posted a leaked built of Ice Cream Sandwich for the original Galaxy S II, and looking at the build.prop file alongside the screenshots of the build, it seems to be the real deal from Samsung, just like the leak for the Skyrocket.

Seeing as how the HTC Vivid officially started getting its update to ICS this morning, AT&T thought it would be the best time to go ahead and tell everyone else who will (and won't) be getting the update as well. While this list holds few surprises when it comes to devices that made the cut, there are a few devices seemingly absent: